Tag: island

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Iceland: Week 9

The ferry to Viðey Island operates on two different schedules labeled “summer” and “winter,” and like most other seasonal timetables in Iceland, winter begins on September 1st. So my trip this week to the uninhabited island, just off the coast of Reykjavík, was limited to the 3-hour window in which the ferry operates off Skarfabakki pier. While it’s the largest island in the Kollafjörður Bay, at 0.62 square miles it can be almost fully explored in those 180 minutes. The tiny and infrequent ferry, combined with my relatively greater than average willingness to traverse uneven terrain in high winds, means that I regularly felt like I had the place to myself.

And what a place. A five minute boat ride from a dense industrial port, with a full view of the city skyline, but it feels like you’ve been transported to the countryside. It’s certainly the most isolated and wild place you can find within city limits, and just distant and quiet enough for wildlife to relax in their perceived solitude, like the seal I spotted fully surfaced and sunning himself on a rock. The Viðey House greats you upon arrival, one of the oldest building in Iceland built in 1755 and fully restored into a cafe.

The Viðey House

The Imagine Peace Tower is a short distance away, designed by Yoko Ono as a tribute to John Lennon. The words “Imagine Peace” are carved into the white stone in 24 different languages, and 15 embedded lights form a luminous nighttime tower. I thought that perhaps it was broken, since I’ve never seen it lit, but apparently it only operates from Lennon’s birthday (Oct 9) to the day he was shot (Dec 8), and then for 1-week periods around New Year’s and the spring equinox. So I’ll look for it then.

Imagine Peace Tower by Yoko Ono

The western part of Viðey, connected by an isthmus to the main island, is the site of an artwork by Richard Serra called Áfangar, which was installed in 1990. It consists of 9 pairs of basalt pillars, where one is 4 meters in height and the other is 3 meters. But they are positioned in the landscape so that the shorter one stands 9 meters above sea level, and the taller of the pair is 10 meters above sea level. In this way, all the columns across the island are a consistent height.

A pair of basalt pillars framing the landscape, part of Richer Serra’s Áfangar artwork.
Diagram showing the measurements of Richard Serra’s environment artwork Áfangar on Viðey Island.

In general, it was just nice to wander around the island. To get a closer view of Mt. Esja, be surrounded by water, and walk through the grasses changing to autumn colors. My midwest brain is hardwired to anticipate the arrival of Fall color this time of year, and I’ve been curious to see how that shows up here.

The view of Viðey Island from the Skarfabakki pier. Not very far way.

When I finish reading a book I might mentioned it the “Noted & Done” section at the bottom of these posts, and if you’re viewing the blog on a computer-sized screen you’ll see a sidebar that displays recent books pulled from my Goodreads account. But I wanted to draw more attention to, and heartily recommend, the new book by Bill McKibben Here Comes the Sun: A Last Chance for the Climate and a Fresh Chance for Civilization. In this relatively slim volume the renowned environmentalist not only makes the expected case that solar power is the best option for the health of our planet, but he shines a light on what most of us have missed — it is now also the cheapest option.

From the purview of Donald Trump’s climate-denying, fact-destroying, oil-industry-governed hellscape this cost tipping point for solar energy is easy to overlook. But apparently, in just the last couple of years, increases in solar cell efficiency and decreases in manufacturing cost at scale have have dramatically reduced the price of solar power. In the US, due to the previously mentioned context, this might be less true than in other countries. But that difference is now entirely artificial and driven by unnecessary barriers, from onerous permitting processes to tariffs on Chinese-made goods. But the rest of the world has noticed, and it’s dramatically changing their energy calculus. Take for example this surprising Wall Street Journal article from earlier this week, entitled Oil Giant Saudi Arabia Is Emerging as a Solar Power.

I do recommend reading the book, but for the highlights right away I’d suggest reading McKibben’s recent New Yorker article. There’s enough in that piece to open your eyes to the change that’s happening worldwide, where apparently people are deploying a gigawatt’s worth of solar panels — the equivalent of one coal-fired power plant — every 15 hours! It’s faster, cheaper, decentralized, repairable, recyclable, and clean. I honestly find very little to be optimistic about these days, so reading Here Comes the Sun was the first genuinely hopeful burst of excitement I’ve had in a while. There are obviously still lots of barriers, with Trump fighting like hell to make sure that his oil executive friends continue to profit as the world careens towards climate catastrophe. But when the social, and moral, and (finally!) economic incentives all align it gives me hope that the old regime is finally fragile enough to break.

A final plug to learn more — if the book or article are both too time consuming right now you can watch Bill McKibben’s interview with Amy Goodman on Democracy Now.

Noted & Done

  • Met with someone from the Arctic Circle to discuss the possibly of being a delegate volunteer at their upcoming Assembly. I’m hoping that works out.
  • Dropped the mini-course related to the above-mentioned Assembly. Upon further reflection I decided it wasn’t worth it as I’m going to attend no matter what and I don’t need credits. So now I’m down to a normal course load of 30 ECTS.
  • Stopped by the Qerndu gallery to see some Ragnar Axelsson photos.
  • Attended a screening of the Swedish sci-fi film Aniara (very dystopian!) as part of the Nordic-Arctic Space Futures Panel Discussion.
  • Went to a lecture about the connections between architecture and music.
  • Finished season 3 of Foundation. The first two seasons had so much scene setting to establish the incredibly complex back story. This latest season still introduced a ton of new characters but I feel like I was able to follow along and enjoy it more. I hear that season 4 has already been green lit.
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Iceland: Week 3

Last week started with a day-trip to Vestmannaeyjar, or the Westman Islands, an archipelago off Iceland’s southern coast that I’ve wanted to visit for a long time. Of course I did — it’s an island off an island — I’m always up for the next most isolated spot. There were a couple of things I knew about Vestmannaeyjar ahead of time: a volcanic eruption forced an evacuation in 1973 and it’s home to Europe’s largest puffin colony.

View from the top of Eldfell volcano
The cliffs along the harbor

Over the last few years my interest in the islands was piqued by a few different pieces of media. The first was a movie called The Deep, a 2012 Icelandic film about the real story of a fisherman who survived a shipwreck and managed to withstand the cold of the North Atlantic for 6 hours while he swam home to Vestmannaeyjar, eventually walking dragging himself to shore and walking home across the lava fields. Great film, but hard to find.

Luckily the other two are readily available, and both about puffins. First is the 20 minute documentary Puffling (full video on Vimeo) that follows people on Vestmannaeyjar as they work to rescue baby puffins (which are called pufflings!) that get lost in the town and need to be taken back to the cliffs. And finally the New York Times Magazine writer Sam Anderson recorded a podcast about his experience of traveling to Vestmannaeyjar and rescuing pufflings. I highly recommend both.

I didn’t get a chance to save any lost pufflings, but I did get to see hundreds, if not thousands on the Stórhöfði peninsula, the southernmost tip of Heimaey island. The only experience I can compare this to was visiting Mykines island in the Faroe Islands in 2018. There, we walked amongst the burrows, watching puffins poke their heads in and out. The cliffs on Vestmannaeyjar are too steep for that, you’re looking down and across at a hill filled with burrows. But the number of puffins is noticeably greater and there is a small viewing shack that can shield you from the weather.

In general, the Westman Islands reminded so much of the Faroe Islands, especially the uninhabited rocks standing alone with a forbidding lack of shoreline. There are 16 islands in total, of which only Heimaey is occupied, but 6 others have a single hunting cabin perched on them, like an isolation look-alike contest with the Faroes’ Stóra Dímun. The southernmost island of Surtsey is brand new, having been formed by a volcanic eruption in just 1967.

I also hiked to the top of the Eldfell volcano, the one that erupted in 1973 covering the town in ash and lava. It’s an amazing view from up there, and provides a sense of scale to the eruption and destruction. What are now lava fields were once houses, and as you walk through them there are signs indicating a house, or the church, or the power plant is buried below you. The Eldheimar museum memorializes and tells the story of the eruption, and it’s incredibly well designed. The museum building itself is constructed around a house that was excavated from the ash and left in situ.

The Eldheimar museum is the building in the bottom left.
The old Kiwanis Club is 16 meters below this plaque.
An excavated home that was completely covered in ash during the Eldfell eruption in 1973

In other news, I finally completed all of the administrative tasks I’d been working on. I got my residency card, after going back to the Directorate of Immigration in person to nudge them to complete it. That opened up the ability to upgrade my phone plan to full capabilities. I also got my student ID card from the University of Iceland, which gives me access to buildings after hours and entitles me to various discounts like a half-price monthly bus pass. I also made a second trip to IKEA and a local retailer Elko, and now have pretty much everything I need for my apartment.

I’m certainly not jet lagged anymore, three weeks in, but I do feel oddly time shifted in various ways. It’s probably a combination of the time zone (4 hours ahead of Eastern) and the fact that the sun doesn’t set until midnight. It’s an awkward shift, because just as I’m looking to get some sleep the work day is ending in the US, the news recaps are available on my podcasts, and many people I know are getting off work. Also, I think my body is confused by the temperature, which is in the 50s and I’m wearing a puffy coat every day. Don’t get me wrong, I very much prefer this to sweltering heat, but my body still gets confused that it’s August.

Noted & Done